New Zealand's contribution to the emergency in Malaya, a difficult guerilla war, was to maintain a frigate or cruiser of the RNZN at Singapore, No. 75 Bomber Squadron RNZAF in Malaya (replaced in 1958 by No. 14 Fighter Squadron), and to send a Special Air Service squadron, a commando-type organisation of parachutists, to serve in the jungle as part of a British Commonwealth brigade. The SAS squadron was recruited early in 1955, left in November, trained in Malaya, and joined its parent unit early in 1956 in an operational role. It patrolled the dense Malayan jungle in search of guerillas until the end of 1957, had numerous clashes with elusive communist bands, and was then replaced by a full infantry battalion. Though the emergency has long since ended, New Zealand still maintains a battalion in this area as a current defence commitment. In the emergency the New Zealand Army lost 10 dead and 21 wounded, and the RNZAF lost five dead and two wounded in the course of its widespread and effective operations against the guerillas.
In September 1964, following the landing of a force of armed Indonesian infiltrators in South-west Malaya, troops of the First Battalion, Royal New Zealand Regiment, began an intensive search for these guerillas through mangrove swampland and jungle. This followed a firm declaration by the Prime Minister, Rt. Hon. K. J. Holyoake that New Zealand, along with Britain and Australia, would strongly support Malaysia against Indonesian aggression.
by Walter Edward Murphy, B.A., Lecturer, School of Political Science and Public Administration, Victoria University of Wellington.
In response to a request dated 10 May 1965 from the Government of South Vietnam for combatant support, the Prime Minister, Rt. Hon. K. J. Holyoake, announced on 27 May 1965 that New Zealand would provide a four-gun battery of artillery to that country and that it would serve alongside an Australian Infantry Battalion.
In a White Paper tabled in Parliament on 13 July 1965, entitled New Zealand Assistance to the Republic of Vietnam, it was stated that, while the Government had to consider its defence obligations and commitments elsewhere, it had decided that the dispatch of an artillery battery to Vietnam in no way detracted from New Zealand's ability to sustain its forces in Malaysia. Because of the formal request from Vietnam, the New Zealand Government, it was claimed, had acted in pursuance of its obligations under the SEATO Collective Defence Treaty, to which the free territory of Vietnam was joined by protocol. Prior to the Prime Minister's statement of New Zealand's support on 27 May, it was announced that the New Zealand V Force, consisting of 161 Battery, 16th Field Regiment, RNZA, and a small Headquarters and logistic support element totalling 120 men, with four 105-millimetre pack howitzers, would be transported to Vietnam by RNZAF Hercules aircraft. This New Zealand V Force, together with supplies and equipment, arrived in Saigon during July 1965.
A New Zealand Army Engineer detachment of 25 men had served in South Vietnam in a non-combatant role from June 1964, but was withdrawn upon the arrival of the New Zealand V Force. R.A.B.